


Life on Other Planets

by PompousPickle



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They want to take Krieg with them. But not everyone is sold on that idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life on Other Planets

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place post-Dragonkeep, when they decide to go the moonbase.

We used to go to other places all the time, for work. Do you remember that? The time on Calypso? Hera? God I know you didn’t forget about Charon. The way the he screamed when we dragged him to the sheriff’s office. “Scream out with a knife in the spine and the rope around his thick little neck,” you mumble in agreement.

You know we can’t do that forever.

“SHUT UP.”

Yeah. I know. I don’t want to think about either.

She’s packing now for the Moonbase. They all are. They don’t have much in the way of possessions. Or well, possessions that aren’t guns. We’re not much different than them in that respect. But in everything else…

I wonder what She would have thought of me sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. I wonder if she would have liked me, before we were like this. Before there was a “we” at all. I wonder if she would have even given me the time of day. I was always good at killing.

“Kill killing deathhh I can almost smell it almost taste it sweet hot metal on the roof of my mouth.”

But I was never good as the two of us together. She probably would have passed me by, or killed me by now, like all of the other bandits. It’s only because of you she finds us interesting. A novelty. We can only protect them when we’re together. So I guess I have to thank you for that.

Too bad that only works on places like Pandora.

“YOu CAAN’t makE me LEAVE.”

But I can. And you and I both know what happens next. What happens to us, to the group, to Her.  We both know it, even if we don’t want to say it, don’t even want to think it.

Pandora is a planet full of monsters. A planet _made_ for monsters. Even before the bandits, before Hyperion, Pandora was made of rabid beasts. It’s never known anything else.

I can’t remember anything else.

Just glimpses of a past where I was okay. Where you didn’t exist.

“THAAt DOESN’T exxissT ANYMOOOORE. FLESSSH CarVED GOODBye TO the BRiiGHT ONessssss.”

She glances up at us, as we pace around the little camp they all set up. She then looks back down at her bag, placing in it a couple more guns, a few hunks of Eridium, and a framed picture.

You crane your neck over, trying to see what the picture was. Trying to see if we’re in it. If we’re a part of a memory that she needs to take with her, something that she doesn’t want to forget.

You can’t see past the glare of the sunset. Soon the sun will be down and they’ll be asleep, ready to tackle the moonbase. They’ll wipe Hyperion off the map for good, destroying everything that tormented us, everyone who made us this way.

And then what?

And then they will go hunt the Vaults across the planet. Opening them, releasing their secrets, trying to find answers. There is no way to stop them, to stop Her, from searching for the truth.

Calypso. Hera. Charon.

We can’t go back.

“DOOOoon’T TAKE meeeeE”

They’re long asleep now, ready to leave when the sun comes up. I can feel the mask underneath our fingers. You run your hands over it, gripping at the straps that always kept our face hidden from the world. It kept us breathing in the planets chemicals, filtering in the Eridium dust floating through the air of the planet. Making us strong. Stronger than we could ever be apart.

“They won’t need us anymoreee” You grumble, in alarming clarity.

But it’s true.

You lay the mask next to Her. The Siren barely stirs as you look down at her, ready for her to find the mask come-morning. You run a soft hand down the Mechromancer’s cheek. You mumble goodbyes to the Commando, to the Gunzerker, to the Assassin. To the people who saved your life, again and again. To the people we saved countless times, with little regard for ourselves.

To our friends.

“Gooodbyeeee.”

And the night then begins to beckon and you head out into the depths of the valley. We weren’t cut out for life on other planets. Pandora is a place for monsters, and probably the only place for us. Maybe they’ll remember us. Maybe they’ll be back someday. And I’ll be healed, a little saner, a little clearer.

But until that day comes, we can do nothing but wait.


End file.
